Erudite

Just a note that these "1080p video" are lower quality than the original "BDMV" 1080p streamed by Tencent. I have benchmarked the original bit-rate to reach 10,000kbps while these are only around 2500kbps.
The original broadcast video quality of HSDS 2019 and Ever Night are among the best for 1080p C-dramas. Only the original UHD (actually up-scaled 2k) version of Bloody Romance I saw has better quality.

The use of the alias "Ah Niu" in Chapter 16 of the 21st century final edition of the novel (coincident with EP16 in the drama) was given slightly greater significance compared to previous editions of the story as ZWJ chosen this name purposely in remembrance of a character.

According to one episode guide, she will appear in EP23 (out of 50).
Note that in the novel, ZM only appeared starting Chapter 23 (novel consist of 40 long chapters).
Also, casted-luck mentioned that ZWJ used the name "Ah Niu" in EP16.
In the final edition of the novel, this occurred in Chapter 16 as well - and use of this alias name has slightly greater significance compared to previous editions of the novel.

After some delay, this drama finally began earnestly filming in March 2019.

While I hoped for a more experience cast, at least the young cast are decently trained and more professional than some 'idols'. I will give them the benefit of doubt for now.

Tencent (QQ video) VIP members will get to view a maximum of 6 more episodes before they are available for free members.
Regardless of whether one paid for VIP or not the total number of episodes will be the same in the end.

Hi Amastris, thanks for writing a detailed and thoughtful response.
Indeed, I agree with most of the points you later made in your 2nd post.

I should explained that my comment to your first post is that I thought you put too much weight on suggesting to get an important acting part in Chinese industry one need university qualification (which is a good thing to have on one’s resume in most career paths, btw) and it is irony that is posted under a drama where the lead, ZLY did not go to university. So I wrote this cheekily with (a smiley at the end).

(I could have also put down https://kisskh.at/people/6172-wang-bao-qiang as another example of not needing higher education level to be a successful actor in China, as Wang opted out of a traditional primary education when he is 8 years old)

Back to clarifying ZLY’s education level:
She attended 廊坊市电子信息工程学校 (Langfang Electronic Information Engineering School) at city of Langfang, province of Hubei (her home town).
The school’s official website at http://www.lfdxedu.cn described itself as a 集普通中专
Which is a combined Secondary (Middle School) + Technical Vocational School
It short, her school (established 1991) offers 3 years of upper secondary education plus a 1 to 2 years vocational (skills-based) program elective. ZLY selected and completed its flight attendant program when she is 18 to 19 years old.
So I would argue that this not equivalent to a university degree.

There’s no question that ZLY works hard for her achievements and my argument is she and others without high education can too be highly successful in the Chinese drama and movie industry.

Thanks for reading this, I hope I’m not being too impudent in my arguments in this topic. Appreciate all your contributions in this forum. Peace.

It might be quite a shock to Zhao Liying, the lead actress playing Ming Lan - when she found out that she shouldn't be able to take part in Chinese dramas, as she did not have any proper academic qualifications you mentioned :D

The drama is not slow at all. It's a good production and I enjoyed all the episodes I have watched so far.

Well, I'm glad the nature of the Arch Enemy is never revealed in Season 1. If I am not mistaken when the original Chinese novel is being serialized on web, no one has shown proof that they're able to guess it before the BIG REVEAL which I noticed the paid English translation caught up to a few days ago. (To think the before 2018, it took a number of volunteers from 2012 to 2017 just to do the first 80+ chapters for free)

Some people can resist not to look ahead at the book source when they're between TV seasons (like myself for the Expanse series). Of course, it's matter of choice for individuals but I would still recommend people not to go beyond chapter 685 if they want to preserve the surprise when they watch S2. Not knowing will work in favor of the story. S1 is about 70% faithful to the first 2 volumes of the Chinese original and S2 should be another 2 volumes with the story wrapping up in S3.

It was Nian under the hood - he is going for an encounter with 3rd sister :)

Actually I'm pretty sure Dylan Wang's company, Tencent Pictures is responsible for pushing Arthur off Season 2 to promote their own star.
To compensate Arthur, they gave him the lead role in Legend of Awakening which is also produced by Tencent.
The director's producing company GPM won't have enough funds for Season 2 without Tencent (which is also the distributor) so they have to accept the role change.

Check out the Production Company Credits at the bottom of the official posters:
https://kisskh.at/photos/mje63 (Ever Night S1)
https://kisskh.at/photos/E83V0 (Ever Night S2)

For Ever Night S1, GPM is credit first as producing company, and Tencent Pictures is at 4th place (out of 6).
In S2, Tencent is now credit 2nd place and GPM has dropped to 3rd (out of 4).

We can also compare this pattern with Hollywood films joinly produced by Tencent Pictures:
In Wonder Woman (2017) Tencent got credit at 5th place.
For Venom (2018) Tencent is credit at 3rd place.
For the upcoming Top Gun movie (2020), Tencent is at 4th place, below Tom Cruise's company (3rd) and the director's producing company (1st).

Yes, there's a schedule issue with Arthur, but it's one created by Tencent - the company knows the actors and director can't wait forever (while it delayed funding S2)

https://kisskh.at/photos/E8DnO
https://kisskh.at/photos/d4o1g

Recently I watched a poor quality leaked short clip of the new Ning Que in action at a scene which I recognized it's from Season 2 based on my knowledge from the novel. So people concerned about the current progress of S2 can put their hearts slightly at ease.

The other thing is some novel readers are unhappy that an important 'side encounter' is not shown during the battle in EP60. But I think the drama creators didn't forget about it, because a 'stranger' is shown entering the capital in EP59 - it's just that they don't want it to distract viewers from the climax but defer it to S2 (maybe even 1st episode).
A cast member posted some costume photos more than a month ago without comment. In light of Season 1's development, I believe they are related to the encounter above, following the novel story (photos tagged spoiler below).

I watched a leaked short clip of him as Ning Que in a scene which I recognized it's from Season 2 based on my knowledge from novel. The quality of the clip is quite bad but I can tell it's him even with my recent vision impairment.

If approved by MDL, the new drama entry for Season 2 I submitted should appeared soon.

Sorry for the recent absence, about 10 days ago I was diagnosed having CNV in one of my eye due to my pathologic myopia http://eyewiki.aao.org/Pathologic_myopia_(myopic_degeneration).
Yes, it can affected people in the 20-30 group or even younger (I started wearing glasses of -6 diopter at the age of 4)
The CNV apparently developed while I was having my vacation trip (physical exertion?) – I didn’t realized the seriousness of my failing eyesight until I went for a checkup after I returned.
So it took me a few days to come to terms with my condition, underwent the first treatment and trying to adjust. So please bear with me, since at the moment I need to type with an eye-pad covering my affected eye (otherwise I felt vision discomfort akin perhaps to certain characters in this drama when they looked at some secret books...)
Nevertheless, I wish to bid everyone here at MDL a Happy New Year 2019.

A young, low-profile team with members from China, Hong Kong and Taiwan worked almost under the radar on this project. Only when Li Yitong was spotted filming onsite in early December did it gather some low-key publicity.
Coincidentally it was announced on December 15 2018 that Zheng Zhi, the writer of the original story (the movie is based on) had won the Anonymous Writer Grand Prize valued at 60,000 yuan (for an unrelated new work) defeating many famed writers who all competed anonymously including Franz Kafka Prize winner Yan Lianke and https://kisskh.at/people/14928-ma-bo-yong.
Filming is scheduled to complete January or early February 2019.

Back just in time for the 1000th post :D

@Lullina: The Tianqi calendar is dated from the year of the revelation and the massacre, so we always know by implication SS' current age whenever the calendar is mentioned.

Actually both camps were well established up to this day for the original novel, and the author Mao Ni himself made a remark recently that it is happening again with the drama.